Discord Consensus

which flows through the length of the region, and was made a Landkreis
in 1977. That year, Aschendorf-​Hümmling, Meppen and Lingen merged
into the largest German Landkreis of the time. 9 Until 1978, East Frisia
and the Emsland were part of the governmental districts of Aurich and
Osnabrück respectively. These governmental districts were administrative
bodies of the State of Lower Saxony, which executes its policies
through the districts. At the head of each district is a district president
(Regierungspräsident) who runs the administrative apparatus. However,
in contrast to the Dutch provinces, there is no direct political representation
of the people living in the districts.
From an economic and demographic angle, the four regions of
Groningen, Drenthe, East Frisia and the Emsland have shared many
characteristics, especially since the Second World War. After 1945 the
process of population growth, which had stagnated due to the Second
World War, resumed at a rapid pace. During the 1950s and 1960s, the
Western European population grew by 0.7 per cent each year. 10 The
northern Netherlands and north-​west Germany were not excluded from
this general population growth, as can be seen in Table 9.1. Population
forecasts caused people to realise that new jobs would be required in the
near future. Economic life in Groningen and Drenthe, as well as in East
Frisia and the Emsland, had hitherto been mostly related to agriculture.
Cattle and arable farming provided employment for many labourers.
Due to the mechanisation of labour, concentration on specific products
and increases in scale, the numbers of people needed to work in the agricultural
sector decreased. In the early twentieth century, approximately
a quarter of the West European labour force worked in the agricultural
sector. This number had fallen to 12.8 per cent by 1960. 11 Between 1947
and 1956 the percentage of the nation’s male workers employed in the
agricultural sector fell from 29.3 to 22.9 per cent in Groningen and from
44.5 to 34.0 per cent in Drenthe. 12 In East Frisia the number declined
from 46.4 per cent in 1946 to 30.2 per cent in 1961. 13 The same happened
in the Emsland, where more than half the population worked in
the agricultural sector after the Second World War; by 1970 this had
fallen to less than 23 per cent. 14 Furthermore, many peat diggers, especially
in the province of Drenthe, lost their incomes due to the rise of
alternative fuels, and the consequent collapse of the peat sector.
These economic and demographic processes had an extraordinary
impact on the northern Netherlands and north-​west Germany.
Industry was not totally absent; in Groningen, and to a lesser extent also
in Drenthe and East Frisia, agricultural products were processed into
sugar, potato starch, strawboard and dairy products. 15 East Frisia and
154
DISCORD AND CONSENSUS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES, 1700–​2000